Facilities Management Lead

Chicago Public Schools (CPS) is one of the largest school districts in the United States, serving over 340,000 students in 600+ schools and employing nearly 36,000 people, most of them teachers.  CPS has set ambitious goals to ensure that every student, in every school and every neighborhood, has access to a world-class learning experience that prepares each for success in college, career, and civic life.  In order to fulfill this mission, we make three commitments to our students, their families, and all Chicagoans: academic progress, financial stability, and integrity.  Six core values are embedded within these commitments – student-centered, whole child, equity, academic excellence, community partnership, and continuous learning.

The Department of Facilities is responsible for managing the day-to-day operations of CPS schools, modular buildings, annexes, and administrative offices. The department ensures that the district’s schools and facilities are clean, safe, heated and cooled, and dry. 

Job Summary

Under the direction of a Regional Facilities Manager, the Facilities Management Lead is the primary CPS contact for district School Principals regarding operational issues in the field. The Lead maintains daily communications with the Regional Manager, direct reports, and the Facilities Management Organization (FMO) Facilities Managers and is focused on tactical operations and Principal satisfaction. This role represents CPS Facilities at the school level, helps develop a vision for school facilities and strategic goals, leads weekly work plan reviews with the FMO Facility Manager and supports the FMO team to remove roadblocks.   

The Facilities Management Lead will be held accountable for the following responsibilities:

• Execute CPS quality and compliance requirements, set quality expectations for the delivery team, mentor and lead by example, and confirm that schools are meeting CPS standards
• Manage performance of CPS direct reports (CPS Quality Assurance Specialists) as per CPS management requirements.
• Understands the scope and deliverables of all facility vendor contracts and validates quality performance. Manage escalating vendor issues from the FMO. Engage procurement in resolving vendor contract issues. Escalate to the Regional Manager, if required.
• Hold suppliers accountable for honoring contractual and scope of work obligations to include meeting KPIs. Work daily with the FMP Facilities Managers to resolve issues in the field and secure required resources to complete work. Escalate deficiencies to the Regional Manager. Support the FMO with escalating third party vendor issues and engage CPS procurement and leadership as required.
• Assists in developing and executing continuous improvement activities and projects focused on cost and reliability. Work with FMO Facilities Managers to identify and track improvement initiatives to include expected results and actual results. With help from the delivery team, provide business case and cost benefit analysis as required for improvement initiatives.
• Understand KPIs, review monthly, focus on improvement areas, work with FMO Facilities Managers to develop corrective action plans, report critical gaps to the Regional Manager, hold the delivery team accountable for performance, help eliminate barriers that are preventing performance improvements, acknowledge improvement and successes with your team, share lessons learned with leadership and peers, validate KPI reports.
• Approves purchase requests from FMO delivery team.
• Manager work orders in TMA as per CPS processes. Escalate work orders to Regional Manager as appropriate. Address concerns with quality or work completion with the FMO Facilities Managers or FMO Building Managers as appropriate.
• Work with FMO Facilities Managers to identify required work at each school. Utilitze general construction/maintenance knowledge and standards, input from the FMO Facilities Managers and Building Managers to estimate end of life for facilities equipment and systems. Provide project budget information for long-term planning.
• Estimate project cost and manage projects within approved budgets. Participate in project management activities, program development efforts, process enhancement initiatives, and compliance management efforts intended to facilitate achievement of objectives.
• Drives maintenance program with the delivery team. Ensures proper technical maintenance and quality. Understands the maintenance strategy for the schools in their area.
• Assisting FMO team in emergency situations. Ensure appropriate CPS leadership is informed and engaged.
• Ensure that all site-specific documentation and reports are completed accurately and on time.
• Directly supervise a team of Quality Assurance Specialists, including annual performance evaluations, discipline, and performance management. 
• Provides leadership to approximately 90 Facilities Management (FM) staff in area of responsibility 

In order to be successful and achieve the above responsibilities, the Facilities Management Lead must possess the following qualifications: 

Education Required: 

• Associate’s Degree is required
• Bachelor’s degree from an accredited college or university is preferred
• Project Management Professional (PMP) is desired

Experience Required: 

• Minimum of 7 years of engineering, operations/maintenance, construction, project controls, or asset management experience 
• Minimum of 2 years supervisory or management experience

Knowledge, Skills, and Abilities:

• In depth knowledge and experience of facility operations maintenance and building systems.
• Able to multi-task and effectively organize responsibilities to achieve assigned facility goals and objectives.
• Ability to develop productive working relationships with key stakeholders and work collaboratively with client personnel and other third parties in order to enhance the experience of facility users.
• Successfully support, work with and through other departments as required to meet department objectives, manage large teams to achieve operational goals, and communicate excellently.
• Ability to understand and dissect building operational issues, develop mitigation plans and engage vendors  or internal resources to address and resolve, all the while focused on root causes and final resolution of the problem and not just the symptom(s). 

Conditions of Employment

As a condition of employment with the Chicago Public Schools (CPS), employees are required to:

• Establish/Maintain Chicago Residency - Employees are required to live within the geographic boundaries of the City of Chicago within six months of their CPS hire date and maintain residency throughout their employment with the district. The Chicago residency requirement does not apply to temporary/part-time positions, however, all CPS employees must be residents of Illinois.
• Be Fully Vaccinated Against COVID-19 - Unless approved for a medical or religious exemption, all employees are required to be up-to-date on COVID-19 vaccinations, including boosters, and to submit proof of vaccination to the district within 30 days of hire. “Up-to-date” on vaccination is defined as being at least two weeks past all primary vaccine doses and any applicable boosters.